Last year, Los Angeles International Airport recorded the highest number of incidents in the country involving laser beams that were pointed at aircraft, a potentially dangerous activity that can distract or temporarily blind pilots, the Federal Aviation Administration announced Wednesday.

The nation’s third busiest airport had 102 reported incidents while the greater Los Angeles area tallied 201, including 32 at Los Angeles/Ontario International Airport, 32 from John Wayne Airport in Orange County, and 31 at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank, according to the FAA. Long Beach Airport; the military reserve airfield at Los Alamitos; and general aviation airports, such as Van Nuys, and Santa Monica, accounted for the rest.

“This is a serious safety issue,” said U.S. Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood. “Lasers can distract and harm pilots who are working to get passengers safely to their destinations.”

Nationally, the number of laser events almost doubled in 2010 from the previous year to more than 2,800 -- the highest number of reports since the federal government began tracking them in 2005. Chicago O’Hare came in second behind LAX with 98 reports. Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport and Norman Y. Mineta San Jose International Airport tied for third with 80 laser events each.

The number of passengers who used Bob Hope Airport continued to drop last year, but the rate of decline was less sharp than in 2009.

From January 2010 through November, about 4.1 million passengers traveled through Bob Hope Airport — a 2.6% drop from 2009, according to a report to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority.

Passenger numbers in 2009 were the lowest in eight years, falling from 5.3 million in 2008 to 4.6 million. The volume of passengers peaked at more than 5.9 million in 2007.

“I think the overall trend has simply been one of bottoming out from the rate of decreases that commenced in 2008 going forward,” said airport spokesman Victor Gill.

Read more: "Passenger figures remain soft at Bob Hope Airport."

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Photo: Burbank Leader/Times Community News

Officials at Van Nuys Airport shut down a runway Thursday night after an abandoned truck was found in a tunnel that passes under the facility, authorities said.

The truck, described by officers as a cargo vehicle, was found in the tunnel near Hayvenhurst Avenue and Sherman Way, the Los Angeles Police Department said. A bomb squad was notified, but had not been dispatched, the LAPD said.

[Updated at 8:52 p.m.: A bomb squad is at the scene and has determined that the truck broke down. There is no threat, the LAPD said.]

The tunnel is beneath the long runway at the airport, which is used by large private jets.

As a precaution, the Federal Aviation Administration ordered the runway shut down, said FAA spokesman Ian Gregor.  As of 7:30 p.m., about six incoming flights had been affected, he said.

[Updated at 9:17 p.m.: The runway has reopened, Gregor said.]

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Two people were seriously injured Monday night in the crash of a small plane at the Warner Springs airport in northeast San Diego County, according to the San Diego County Fire Authority.

The aircraft was in "multiple pieces" when firefighters arrived about 5:30 p.m. The two victims were airlifted to hospitals.

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The Federal Aviation Administration has again raised safety concerns about the proximity between the passenger terminal and one of the runways at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank.

Federal aviation officials have long held that the terminal is too close to the runway, a finding that in 1986 prompted the agency to prohibit planes from taking off to the east. An airport spokesman said planes taking off to the west are safely airborne well before they near the terminal.

But the latest iteration of the proximity issue came after an incident in April in which two planes flew dangerously close to each other above the airfield. Although that incident was determined to be caused by air-controller error, the federal report on the matter determined that "the airport passenger terminal location presents significant risks and compromises airport design safety standards."

Officials with the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority say the airport is making the modest adjustments sought by the FAA, including relocation of a weather sensor near runways, and is working with a private property owner to remove a nearby windmill. They also plan to bolster so-called blast walls that redirect exhaust from jet aircraft.

Read the full story here.

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-- Bill Kisliuk, Glendale News-Press / Times Community News

Photo: A plane takes off at Bob Hope Airport. Credit: Glendale News-Press

A Delta Airlines flight that left Los Angeles International Airport for Kona, Hawaii, was forced to return to LAX on Tuesday afternoon after experiencing hydraulic problems, federal officials said.

Flight 1299 landed at LAX without problems at 4:47 p.m., said Ian Gregor, a spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Boeing 757 had about 185 passengers and crew members.

Gregor told The Times that the pilot declared an emergency and decided to return to LAX. No additional details were available.

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Traveling on Christmas Day turned out to be a good idea this year — at least for passengers flying through Los Angeles area airports.

The rain took the day off locally and, airport officials said, weather on the East Coast wasn't bad enough to delay flights out of Los Angeles International or Ontario airports.

Delta Airlines had recommended that passengers planning to fly to or through its hub in Atlanta and five East Coast cities rebook because of bad weather in those cities. But Delta flights were taking off from LAX and Ontario without a hitch, said airports spokesman Harold Johnson.

An estimated 120,000 travelers were expected to pass through LAX on Christmas Day, a slight increase over last year, he said.

The busiest holiday travel days were expected to be Christmas Eve and Jan. 2, with flights those days almost 95% booked.

Rescuers Monday evening spotted what appears to be the wreckage of a small plane that was reported missing earlier in the day after taking off from the Palm Springs airport.

Federal investigators were hoping early Tuesday to make their way to the crash site in the Lake Perris State Recreation Area, said Ian Gregor, a Los Angeles-area spokesman for the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Aero Commander didn't arrive at the Chino Airport, and a relative of the pilot called authorities, officials said.

It was unclear how many people were on the plane.

--Robert J. Lopez

Federal investigators found that the small plane that crashed in the Back Bay and killed three people in November ran out of fuel, confirming earlier speculation.

The private pilot, who was flying home from a surf trip in Baja California, refueled in San Felipe and later in Calexico, a border town south of the Salton Sea, according to a report released Monday. National Transportation Safety Board investigators talked with ground crew members and another pilot at those airports.

Ultimately, ounces of water were found in the in the fuel tanks, the report states. Wayne Pollack, lead investigator for the NTSB said in an interview that water could have penetrated through orifices, and not necessarily through a puncture.

Read the full story here.

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Photo: A 1968 Beechcraft Musketeer single-engine aricraft is hoisted out of Upper Newport Bay after crashing the evening of Nov. 21, killing all three on board. (Don Leach / Times Community News)

Parking rates will rise by $1 at Bob Hope Airport in Burbank next year as officials beef up for what is expected to be a long and costly legal battle with Lockheed Martin over who should pay for cleaning polluted groundwater beneath the airfield.

In pitching the fee increase to the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena Airport Authority on Monday, executive director Dan Feger criticized Lockheed Martin Corp. and the Environmental Protection Agency for trying to peg some of the cleanup to the airport, arguing the underground contamination was left behind by decades of military aircraft manufacturing.

In addition to a lawsuit against Lockheed over the cleanup costs, Feger said he is asking California senators in Washington to change the law that places the airport on the hook for part of an estimated $108-million tab. To prevent polluters from escaping liability, the federal law allows the government to cast a wide net in holding property owners responsible for cleanup costs.

Read the full story here.

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-- Bill Kisliuk, Glendale News-Press / Times Community News

Photo: An SUV climbs the ramp at the Bob Hope Airport parking garage, where day rates will rise to $31. Credit: Tim Berger / Times Community News